Bonehead Move of The Day

Today's Bonehead Move of The Day comes from WANE TV.

Following Tuesday's tense City Council meeting, WANE TV greeted their audience with this masterpiece:

For some reason, the Maven has a mental image of Councilmen John Crawford and Russ Jehl repelling down the side of Citizen Square, wearing masks, tights, and superhero capes. Uh, yeah. 

But wait, there's more. the kids in the WOWO newsroom chose to substitute the word "LESSENED" for the more common, and appropriate "REDUCED" in the story below. The Maven isn't really sure why, perhaps they missed being mentioned by the Maven.

  
One more thing, and we've talked about this before. The word "alleged" offers no protection from lawsuits when used in a crime story. In fact, "alleged" is painfully burdensome below. The words "police say" are more than enough to indicate the the police are making the charge, not the kids in the newsroom. 

So, How Big Is It, Really?

Once again, Fort Wayne media has done it's best to confuse their audience. 

As the lady to the left so cleverly illustrates, size does matter, so, leave it to the Journal Gazette and WPTA/etc, to totally fumble the measurements of Sweetwater Sound's new, electronic billboard at their HQ on US 30 West. 

The Maven is amazed something simple as cutting and pasting from Sweetwater's press release would be so difficult. 

The Journal Gazette, in a cutline under a photo of the sign, says:

WPTA/etc has a different number:

The Maven is sure a reasonable explanation exists for the discrepancy, perhaps having to do with how one can measure an electronic billboard. However, since neither story explains that methodology, the audience is left with the impression that one or both media outlets got it wrong. 

It Would Have Been Nice To Know

Hey, J-G! Let us in on the fun. 

Forget to capitalize people's names and titles in your news stories? At first glance, it would seem that the Journal Gazette has made an error in not capitalizing the name of a person in a news story.

Ah, but there's a catch. This, apparently is the way that andre douglas pond cummings spells and capitalizes his name. Whether or not he is a descendant of the famous poet ee cummings, has not been established.

In the standard press, when an individual's name is unique in the way it is spelled, punctuated or presented in opposition to normal English, the newspaper or media usually will note that to the readers. That way the reader is not left with the impression that the newspaper writer is negligent in his/her presentation. 

In an updated story, today, the JG has taken the Maven's advice and included a paragraph to help explain the situation.

Now readers know that the Journal Gazette did not err, and that the new dean at the "fledgling law school" has some rather interesting views and values pertaining to the of the use of capital letters. 

No word on whether the diplomas from Indiana Tech's law school will be written in all lower case letters. 

Oh, and Dean Wormer STILL wants to see you in his office.

When News Breaks ... We'll Break It Some More

A stand up comic friend does a riff about local TV news. It's pretty funny, especially when he goes on a tirade about trite and meaningless statements the stations uses to embellish their images. His most favorite is: "When News Breaks, We'll Fix It". It's not an original line, but it does illustrate the depth to which local TV news has sunk over the past 20-25 years. 

So today, when Breaking News "broke" the hastily written text message looked like this:

Even the gum snapping, hair twirling kids in the WOWO newsroom can spot that error. READ Street. Yeah, right! One could blame that demon named AutoCorrect for this one, and maybe so. But the Maven still insists that those who portray themselves as local journalists are long on panic and short on clam and proofing. What!? Proof read texts? Why yes, takes one second, and might same some embarrassment. 
And another thing. Where does 21Alive get these hideous graphics? 

Really, sexually stylized bullets represent a shooting? That large space to fill, and fill it with a trite and insulting graphic? Pro tip: why not take the little map at the bottom and put it in that large space so we might know exactly where READ Street is? Gee, that would make too much sense.....

Is It Too Much To Ask?

The Maven knows it's local media. 

The Maven realizes how low the bar has already been set. 

But, for the love of Anthony Wayne, can someone please read what they are publishing?

Oh yeah, as usual the kids in the WOWO Newsroom are turning out a credible, readable news product. Who am I kiddin'?

And the ownership, management and advertisers of these fine media outlets don't seem to care. Suffering the fools gladly....

WOWO Gives You Gas

It is clear no one supervises these people or checks their work. 

From four of today's WOWO news stories. Four more reasons for audience indigestion.

East of South Bend? That narrows it down a bit. However, that's not quite how Shipshewana is geographically described in all the advertising they place on WOWO....

Somehow, the Maven does not think that's how the Associated Press wrote that...

Could you mean "The City of Elkhart"? Lucky guess, I know.

Looks like one too many 'candidates', kids......

Nervous, Someone Should Be

The Maven's Friday F*up, of course, from the kids in the WOWO Newsroom.

A closer look:

Most of us would be "nervous" if we had written this piece of journalistic excrement....but, for some reason this type of repeated and on-going error is frequently tolerated by those claiming to be managers at the sprawling radio ranch out on Maples Road. It's becoming apparent that some FedMed employees can do no wrong. It's must be nice to be the protected like that.